If someone was pushed to describe the church of today in one word, I think there’s a good chance they’d use the word “divided.” In the United States alone there are more than 200 different Christian denominations, and the reason is that Christians are divided on a long list of issues. We divide over traditional preferences, worship preferences, Bible translations, and even what the church building should look like. These are just the beginning of the kinds of things Christians divide over. Don’t you wish there was some way Christians could get along?
In Ephesians 2, Paul says that Jesus is our peace. He is talking about how in Jesus, the division and animosity that once existed between Jews and Gentiles was done away with. The ancient Jews and Gentiles had so much disdain for one another, but when the two came to faith in Jesus, he became the common ground that transcended all the things that made them different. In effect, Jesus made these people, divided as they were, to be one.
If Jesus could unite the ancient Jews and Gentiles, I think he can do the same for modern day Christians! Most of the things that we divide over in the church don’t amount to much at all in comparison to Jesus! But, time and again, we focus on the wrong things. We Christians need to learn to focus on him rather than on the things we let divide us. We need to let him be our common ground as he was for the Jews and Gentiles! Just like for them, Jesus is our peace!